Margaret Hill McCarter

Margaret Hill McCarter (1860–1938) was an American teacher and novelist, known for her portrayals of Kansas prairie life and its pioneers. Her work drew on the people and customs of the American Midwest's settlement era, with the prairie, the trail, and the struggles of ordinary people forming the backdrop of her fiction. Her representative novel, Vanguards of the Plains: A Romance of the Old Santa Fe Trail, sets a romantic narrative against the old Santa Fe Trail, weaving the hardships and endurance of pioneers into its story and reflecting her familiarity with and affection for frontier life. Her plain style focuses on how characters grow and make choices in harsh surroundings, giving her a place in inspirational and coming-of-age reading as well. Because public information is limited, details of her full biography, education, and complete list of works are difficult to set out; even so, her surviving writings remain a valuable record of Kansas pioneer memory.